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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24293977">Walking Nightmares</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Real_Squoose/pseuds/The_Real_Squoose'>The_Real_Squoose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dream Adventures, Dreamwalker, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gangsey, Gen, Horror Elements, Hurt/Comfort, Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:27:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24293977</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Real_Squoose/pseuds/The_Real_Squoose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Back when his father was still around, he’d learned that he could pull things from his dreams. Flowers, at first, then bigger things. Sometimes it was self-functioning toasters or wooden music boxes he’d give to his mother at Christmas. Sometimes the night horrors came with him instead.</p><p>It was only after Niall Lynch’s death that Ronan discovered another bit of dream magic.</p><p>(Ronan can walk into other people's dreams. Likewise, they can wander into his. It's a blessing disguised as many nightmares and secrets he shouldn't know.)</p><p>((Art by the wonderful pigmypouter!))</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Noah Czerny &amp; Richard Gansey III &amp; Ronan Lynch &amp; Adam Parrish &amp; Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent (minor), Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>123</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Walking Nightmares</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>

</h1><h1>
  <em> Ronan. </em>
</h1><p>He didn’t choose whose dreams he went to. He didn’t choose his own dreams, either, but that was a whole different ball game.</p><p>Back when his father was still around, he’d learned that he could pull things from his dreams. Flowers, at first, then bigger things. Sometimes it was self-functioning toasters or wooden music boxes he’d give to his mother at Christmas. Sometimes the night horrors came with him instead.</p><p>It was only after Niall Lynch’s death that Ronan discovered another bit of dream magic.</p><p>“Don’t go,” Ronan begged. </p><p>He couldn’t remember where he’d come from or how he’d gotten here, but he knew he couldn’t let Niall leave.</p><p>“It’s time,” Niall said. Dressed in black leather with slicked back hair, sliding on sunglasses like a character rather than a person. He put the key in the ignition of a low, sleek car Ronan had seen him drive only once, and pried Ronan’s fingers off the window frame.</p><p>“I have to tell you something, I--come on, you can’t really be going.” He was not quite himself--smaller, skinnier, hair plastered to his face by the rain. Younger. More vulnerable.  “You’re my father. Dad. <em> Dad.” </em></p><p>“<em>Ronan </em> ,” Niall said, as if he were saying <em> go away. </em></p><p>Ronan stumbled back from the car as it took off.</p><p>The world seeped into existence around him. What had been a void in his vision vaguely suggesting a long road and sunset appeared in full.</p><p>Ronan’s knees hit cement. Rain dripped down his face, mixed with tears. He inhaled dense air, breath rattling, and couldn’t remember when the hollow ache in his chest had started.</p><p>A forest came into focus, bordering the road. It looked off. Taller, darker, more vivid than real life. Every forest he’d ever been to was no majestic thing. Plain trees and sparse undergrowth over a ground of rotting leaves and bug-littered earth. This was something else. The air pulsed with magic, beating in rapid time with Ronan’s heart.</p><p>He wanted Niall to come back and he wanted someone to comfort him and there wasn’t a person he could turn to. Not Aurora, who he couldn’t speak with. Not Matthew, who he wanted to preserve like a shred of his own heart and keep untainted. Not Declan. Except, there was Gansey.</p><p>“Ronan?” it was Gansey’s voice, and it said <em> Ronan </em> like <em> what the hell? </em>But Ronan didn’t care in that moment to wish for someone to say his name like they really meant it. He needed Gansey, and here he was.</p><p>“Why can’t I get him to stay? Why won’t he ever--” His voice cracked. Ronan snapped his mouth shut, tipping his face up so the cold rain could clear his face. He knew that this was not right, since when did he break down so gently? Let his heart crack apart without throwing a punch in the meantime? He knew it wasn’t right, but he couldn’t stop it.</p><p>Gansey, dressed in a full suit with a champagne flute in his hand and confusion written across his cleanly handsome face, dropped to his knees in front of Ronan. He put the flute aside, and his hands on Ronan’s shoulders. Determination in his eyes instead.</p><p>“Hey, look at me,” Gansey said.</p><p>It was Ronan’s dream, he knew that now, and he could be as honest and raw as he wanted.</p><p>He got up and kicked wildly at a tree. He let his tears keep coming until he felt salt on his tongue. He screamed down the road and up to the sky about his father and life and the unfairness of both, and Gansey was right there when he came down from his rage.</p><p>“Come on, Ronan. You know this won’t help.” Gansey shook him, and Ronan slid glassy eyes to his. “Your father’s death is not your fault. You know that. There’s nothing you could have done, and there’s nothing you can do now. You have to make peace with that. He didn’t want to leave you either. He didn’t choose this.”</p><p>Ronan looked at the road, searching for tire marks, but it was suddenly Not A Road. A parking lot instead. The one outside Monmouth. He hadn’t changed the dream, he knew he hadn’t. He couldn’t control everything, but he could certainly anticipate the shifts. He hadn’t done this.</p><p>“Do you want to go for a drive?” Gansey said. “Let’s go get some juice.”</p><p>It was exactly what he needed. He glowered at Gansey.</p><p>Gansey got in the Pig, and Ronan followed.</p><p>Ronan hadn’t changed the setting. He’d only asked for Gansey, and he’d shown up as if he’d been pulled from a very specific scene. One of his parents’ parties? Dream Gansey never appeared that way unless Ronan was feeling self-pitiful and his dreams intended on taunting him.</p><p>Ronan closed his eyes and turned the Pig to his BMW. Turned the road through town to the path to the Barns. He focused on every detail he could remember of both, just like he did when he brought his dreams to life.</p><p>Ronan opened his eyes.</p><p>“How about we go for a drive first?” Gansey said, drumming his fingers on the wheel. They were still in the Pig, driving down a familiar road. “There’s this spot overlooking the town. . .”</p><p>This Gansey was more real than the perfect ones Ronan could never live up to and the cruel ones that threw him out like trash and mocked him like someone who knew him inside and out. This Gansey drove them away from Monmouth and through storefronts that were far too clear and roads too realistic to be Ronan’s.</p><p>He knew Henrietta, but he hadn’t memorized it. Hadn’t spent hours sitting on the floor making a model. Ronan cursed a long stream and Gansey’s mouth tightened.</p><p>“Is it really you?” Ronan scrubbed at his face and read the sign on a laundromat with an actual full fucking paragraph on it, with sensical words too. “It’s you, isn’t it? How the hell. . .”</p><p>Gansey glanced over, brow furrowed. “Of course it’s me.”</p><p>A dream would have said that too.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, Ronan watched Gansey watching him over breakfast.</p><p>“Fifty bucks says Declan shows up this week,” Gansey said.</p><p>Ronan scowled. “He’s got a new girl already. Starts with an ‘A’.”</p><p>He poked at his toast and Gansey eyed him some more.</p><p>Ronan thought over it throughout the day as he observed an armful of cautious glances that confirmed Gansey had seen him that night--broken and screaming and lost.</p><p>Ronan could pull people into his dreams. He wondered if he could venture into others.</p><p> </p><h1>
  <em> Blue. </em>
</h1><p>Their lives plunged into chaos that very week.</p><p>New people, new threats, new magic. All through it, Ronan didn’t dare try to push into Gansey’s mind. What would he find there? Was it an invasion of privacy to see something Gansey didn’t want him to know?</p><p>But everything happens for a reason and all that magic crap, and his powers didn’t come from nowhere.</p><p>“Get out of my room,” Blue said over her shoulder as she reached up to hang a string of living ivy on her wall.</p><p>The string was stuffed with flowers and leaves, and the rest of her room filled to the brim with plants and paintings. A modular made of fairy lights and strips of cloth spun in the center of the ceiling. The floor looked like a glass window peering into the sky from heaven. Probably no less weird than her real room.</p><p>They’d found Cabeswater now, and met Blue, and everyone knew what Ronan could do.</p><p>Well. That he could pull things from his dreams, and that he took Chainsaw out of them. Not about this part.</p><p>Even across all the times Ronan had accidentally pulled the real Gansey in, he never remembered by morning. He took it seriously when Ronan told him in their dreams, asking questions and picking it apart, but his analyses only made Ronan feel worse. He could never convince his tongue to loose one of his final secrets in the daylight. And so, they didn’t know, and Ronan tried to leave everyone alone, and now it seemed that Cabeswater was giving him no choice.</p><p>Blue put her hands on her hips and surveyed Ronan along with her room. “Earth to Lynch? I’m busy.”</p><p>He couldn’t help but laugh at that. Blue’s eyebrows jumped. She shoved him toward the door, spinning him around with her hands on his shoulders where Gansey’s had been that first time.</p><p>“Are they all here? Your wack-o family, are they here too?”</p><p>And as they moved down the narrow hall, a person formed out of the shadow. The window outside Blue’s room had let in white light, but the walls were grainy and grey here, and getting closer by the second.</p><p>“Oh, fuck.” Ronan pushed back against Blue. She peered around his body. “Poltergeist Persephone.”</p><p>Blue didn’t answer.</p><p>Skin pale and fine as a piece of paper, stringy hair dripping red and black eyes wide and soul-searching, Persephone was not a pleasant sight to see. Ronan had not signed up to deal with someone else’s nightmares when he’d gone to sleep that night.</p><p>“Back up,” he hissed to Blue. She didn’t move. “<em> Go, </em>maggot!”</p><p>Persephone grinned, flashing a row of inch-long teeth.</p><p>This was Blue’s dream, and Ronan struggled to wrangle it. He focused his intention at Persephone, wishing her harmless, wishing her gone. Persephone ran at them.</p><p>He strained his mind, reached deep for his abilities, and then he pushed Blue. She fell right through a wall and into his dreamscape, tumbling through a painting. Ronan tumbled after her, out of reach of Persephone’s claws, and into rolling fields and baying animals. </p><p>Blue dropped to the ground and laid unmoving, eyes searching the starry sky.</p><p>“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of your family,” Ronan said. There was no evidence of the way they came in, just empty air.</p><p>He cast around for a weapon, and one appeared in the grass. The mutated Persephone was nowhere to be seen, but if Blue kept thinking bad thoughts, Ronan was going to start getting irritated himself. Then night horrors would come, and monsters, and all bad things, etcetera.</p><p>“It’s just scary sometimes,” Blue admitted. Ronan turned back to her, a little puzzled she was willing to confess anything to him. But then, it was a dream. “They’ve got all this power--and my mom, she always says there’s nothing to be afraid of with magic and ghosts. And then I went to the churchyard, and they drained my energy. Maybe if enough ghosts take from me, I won’t have anything left anymore.”</p><p>“Are you afraid of Noah, too?”</p><p>Blue shrugged, her shoulders wet with dew. “I love him, but he’s a dead thing, and it shows.”</p><p>She’d said it so easily. <em> I love him. </em>Ronan looked down the hill. His house was tucked between rising ground in the distance, the windows glowing. Cool air slipped along his skin. The more details he added, the more focused he could stay. The less likely this was to go wrong.</p><p>“I know you care about them,” Blue said simply.</p><p>Ronan clutched the weapon the dream had given him, a cudgel, and walked a circle around her vigilantly. “We should get out of open space.”</p><p>Blue narrowed her eyes. A cold wall pressed into Ronan’s back. A school hallway rose up around them. Mountain View, Blue’s school, perhaps. Ronan had struggled to change Blue’s dream, but it didn’t seem to work the other way around.</p><p>“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Between one moment and the next, Blue had flickered to standing up the same way Noah moved. She laid her hand on the wall. “I can feel it, now that you’re here.”</p><p>“Psychic powers?”</p><p>“Between you, dear Greywaren, and my energy--” she snapped her fingers. The walls melted away to grass and a raven made of shells. “Ha! That’s cool.”</p><p>“This isn’t a game.”</p><p>Blue smirked at him. <em> Blue </em> smirked at <em> Ronan. </em>Wasn’t that his job?</p><p>“You’re the one who mocks Gansey for taking things so seriously,” Blue teased. She threw her hands up and closed her eyes, waving her arms dramatically. The skies cleared to baby blue and cotton ball clouds. She opened her eyes. “I feel like one of the X-Men. An X-Woman. How many times have you done this before?”</p><p>Ronan sent of the shells skittering across the others with his boot. “Once. Not on purpose.”</p><p>“But not with me. You did it with. . .Gansey.” He hated how Blue saw right through him. “You didn’t hesitate.”</p><p>Ronan surveyed the field, the forest, as if it could protect him from this god-awful conversation.</p><p>“With Persephone,” Blue plowed on, oblivious. Or more likely, perfectly aware of how her words were making his hackles raise but not caring. “Maybe you don’t like me as much as you love him--</p><p>“I don’t--” <em> love him, </em>Ronan started to say, but it wasn’t true. What worth would he have left if he abandoned the one thing that made him golden to Gansey--his honesty? “You won’t remember this in the morning.”</p><p>Blue laid her hand on one of Cabeswater’s thick trees, and Ronan got the sense that they were really there. Standing on the outskirts, spirits haunting the grounds.</p><p>“Probably not.”</p><p>Ronan’s jaw worked. He moved it into just the right place to lock it and unlock it again with a click while he forced words to form. “You’re one of us now. I thought I could put off Gansey leaving me if I got everyone else away from him, but it--but no. You’re good for him.”</p><p>He thought of Adam. Once upon a time, he’d violently resisted his inclusion, but it was all for nothing in the end. Parrish was good for Gansey, and good for them. And Noah was too. And Blue.</p><p>“I wish you’d back off Adam,” Ronan said. “You were better for him before, better than I could ever be. Not anymore. I know you don’t want him.”</p><p>Blue’s chin raised indignantly, only for her expression to soften a moment later. “I’m not trying to take advantage of him. I care about all of you and I. . .I do love him. It’s just, I love him the same way I love you.”</p><p>That took Ronan off-guard. He was already less himself in dreams, just as honest but far more soft, and now he was hurtling toward a new level of dangerous territory.</p><p>“I’m not a fucking bleeding heart,” Ronan groused, a last ditch attempt at retaining his dignity.</p><p>Blue tilted her head, and Ronan knew she’d figured out how he felt about Adam. Just like that. She wouldn’t remember this in the morning. Probably.</p><p>Ronan called consciousness to him, pleading for it to drag him out of this situation. He reached for his body, his real one, and it answered. Sluggishly, but responding all the same.</p><p>“You’re running away?” Blue looked genuinely confused.</p><p>The world spiraled away. Ronan woke up.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, they picked Blue up from 300 Fox Way. Noah sat in the backseat like a safety barrier between Adam and Blue, and Ronan watched her in the mirror. She stared back.</p><p>“Is this your attempt at asserting dominance?” Blue asked archly. “Because it’s not working.”</p><p>They looked away at the same time, as always.</p><p>She didn’t look at him any differently than she had the day before. Blue didn’t remember their shared dream, even with all her power over it. Ronan didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse.</p><p>   </p><h1>
  <em> Gansey. </em>
</h1><p>Gansey dreamed of Cabeswater and the Camaro and everyone in one place. He dreamed of empty space, the fields stretching on forever when Cabeswater was gone. He dreamed of finding Glendower, and he dreamed of losing everything he ever loved. He dreamed of libraries and artifacts and tombs straight out of Indiana Jones movies. He dreamed of his family slamming their doors on him. He dreamed of Ronan bleeding out in back alleys.</p><p>Most times, he goes to sleep late, the same as Ronan.</p><p>Most times, his dreams are nothing good.</p><p>When he sleeps earlier, the rare nights where he’s found something magical and can rest with the knowledge that they’ve gained something great, his dreams are sweeter. Card games at Monmouth, swimming in lakes, running through Cabeswater, laughing at Nino’s, trooping through fields and caves with light eyes and jokes on their lips.</p><p>And the third type of dream: the victorious one. Gansey with a crown on his head, clasping arms with Glendower. A Glendower that looks like a king out of a medieval fantasy TV show meant for teenagers. His face too clean, teeth too straight, in royal robes rather than armor and chainmail. Rather than being ready for battle.</p><p>(Some nights, Gansey stands on one end of a wide field, with Glendower and all his friends and family on the other side, and Glendower raises the great sword in his hand. Points it at Gansey. Orders them to kill him.)</p><p>Ronan’s getting sick of losing sleep over other people’s nightmares, but he can’t pull himself away. The dreams have yanked him in night after night now, with no chance of him avoiding them. It’s been months since he first met the real Gansey in his dreams, and the world is a different place. Ronan is a different person.</p><p>“Do I look okay? How’s my hair--oh, my tie. Is it alright? Perhaps I should’ve chosen a different one. . .” Gansey anxiously surveyed himself in the car mirror, running a hand over his head. Ronan peered at him from the backseat, glancing around to place himself. He hadn’t consciously stepped into Gansey’s dream this time.</p><p>300 Fox Way. The sun setting. Blue emerging from the house. She spun in a circle and her dress, constructed of strips of every color and pattern of fabric imaginable, flared out around her. She was dressed to the nines in Blue Sargent standards, and Gansey wore a suit to match.</p><p>“Nice to know you aspire to going to Aglionby’s shitty prom,” Ronan said, amused.</p><p>“If you’re going to complain, you should’ve gone in the other car with Adam, like I told you,” Gansey replied. “Really, this tie? Why did I choose. . .”</p><p>Blue opened the door to what was rightfully Ronan’s seat and climbed in. Gansey gaped at her. Ronan rolled his eyes.</p><p>“You look. . .”</p><p>“Intelligent, talented, and strong?”</p><p>“Well, yes.”</p><p> “And beautiful.”</p><p>Gansey let out a shaky breath. “Stunning. I like that dress.”</p><p>“I made you a matching tie,” Blue said. Disgustingly sweet. She handed him a patchwork construction that matched her skirt, and Gansey immediately pulled his tie off. “You look stunning too.”</p><p>Gansey laughed. When Blue reached to help him with the tie, she leaned over the gearshift and pulled him in for a kiss.</p><p>Ronan made gagging noises. “I’m right here.”</p><p>Except, then the dream flickered, and he was out of the car.</p><p>“Thanks for that,” Ronan grumbled.</p><p>They continued to be excessively cute. Ronan tried not to read into the dream too much, but he couldn’t help it. He’d known before that Gansey and Blue had something going on. It was impossible not to with the way they stared at each other, but neither Gansey nor Blue wanted to own up to it. Ronan knew it was to protect Adam’s feelings. Adam’s feelings didn’t need protecting.</p><p>And here they were, safe in Gansey’s dreams. He could have what he wanted for a slice of time he wouldn’t remember in the morning.</p><p>When the dream shifted, it wasn’t Ronan’s fault.</p><p>Silver armor appeared on Blue’s shoulders, over her dress rather than replacing it. And then on Ronan’s, too. They were not quite on the battlefield he’d seen before, for this one was bordered by trees Ronan was Cabeswater.</p><p>“I tried,” Gansey sobbed, and it had only taken a split second for everything to go so, so wrong. Adam and Noah, dressed like Merlin in long robes and a knight in blood-stained armor, stood on either side of Ronan. Gansey’s mud-soaked knees sunk into the earth.</p><p>“Not hard enough,” Adam said, his voice cool and unaffected. It was the Dream Adam that haunted Ronan’s nightmares, now holding a sword to Gansey’s throat instead.</p><p>Ronan looked at each of them. Blue, Noah, Adam. All with weapons in their hands and murder in their eyes. No matter what happened, no matter how they tried to prove it to him, in the end Gansey would always be afraid of them turning on him, it seemed. He couldn’t see his own value. How they’d walk off the end of the world for him.</p><p>Ronan ripped the sword out of Adam’s hand and hit him in the chest with the pommel. Adam stumbled back, coughing, too surprised to retaliate.</p><p>Blue raised her sword to Ronan. “Our problem isn’t with you, Lynch. Don’t you want revenge, too? Gansey here has stolen so much of our lives for this stupid quest. Persephone died for this, she <em> died </em>and he still can’t find Glendower.”</p><p>“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Gansey hung his head, not even attempting to fight back. “I should’ve tried harder. I should have done something for her. I should have left you alone instead of dragging you into my mess. Everything’s my fault, Jane. I know.”</p><p>With the addition of Ronan’s dream powers, he questioned whether the downsides of it now extended to others. If Gansey got his throat cut, would he wake up bleeding out? So Ronan grabbed Gansey and thought <em> Glendower, Glendower, Glendower, </em>and sent a prayer up with it.</p><p>The field didn’t waver. Noah and Blue, tense and angry and unrecognizable in it, raised their swords. The swing happened in slow motion.</p><p>It worked.</p><p>Not well enough to pull Gansey into his own dreamscape, but enough to place them in a different part of this universe. An imagining of Glendower’s tomb.</p><p>The dream slid sideways and melted and reformed. Moist cave walls, spiderwebs, and a great door illuminated by Gansey’s flashlight. They were inside it already. Lit candles were arranged on top of an altar. If Ronan pulled aside the slab on top, he knew Glendower would be sleeping beneath.</p><p>“You really still think we’d leave you?” Ronan said.</p><p>“This is it,” Gansey said. “We’re really here.”</p><p>“Sure. Answer the question.”</p><p>Gansey laid his hands on the altar, reverent. Tears never ceased making tracks down his face. Ronan fought to keep the dream consistent. Just him and Gansey and the tomb, but this wasn’t his world and Gansey’s nightmares fought to tear the walls down.</p><p>The other three in their group came back with their fury and weapons.</p><p>Ronan had to take them down.</p><p>Gansey curled against the altar with his hands over his ears as Ronan pushed them out, one by one, as gently as possible. Bare hands to chests and shoulders and tackling them away from Gansey, striking at arms to knock weapons away. He couldn’t handle any blood on his hands right now, even in a dream.</p><p>“I’m going to get you all killed,” Gansey said. “If you keep following me, you’ll lose everything. People will keep getting hurt and I won’t be able to stop it.”</p><p>“What are you doing?” Adam asked Ronan, the last one left.</p><p>“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” Even as he said it, Ronan knew the dream wouldn’t give up.</p><p>Adam dove for his sword. Ronan threw his body weight at Adam, digging his shoulder into his chest and sending Adam through the cave wall. The rock rippled as he disappeared through it.</p><p>Ronan squinted at his hands in the dim light. He knew there’d be no blood, but he was out of control here, he could do anything without knowing it. Gansey’s influence over him pulling puppet strings.</p><p>Ronan caught his breath and sank down beside Gansey. “I hate this.”</p><p>The shadows of the cave pulsed with barely-contained life. Statues along the sides of the tomb loomed like a promise for death. </p><p>“You can’t get rid of me,” Ronan said, because he had nothing else to promise and no lies to tell Gansey. “I’ll be there. ‘Til death do us part, yeah?”</p><p>He turned into Ronan’s arms. Gansey shook, his heart beating against Ronan, bunching his fists in Ronan’s shirt and hiding his face in his neck. There were no more tears, just quivering breaths and his touch hovering over Ronan’s skin. Like he was afraid to break him.</p><p>“I don’t know who I am without this.” Gansey’s voice was muffled and hoarse. Ronan went stock-still. “I want to find Glendower, I want to bring Noah back, but then what would I do? I’ve spent all this time looking for him, ever since Cabeswater brought me back to life. It brought me to Henrietta, it brought me to you. Who am I?”</p><p>“I was here even when Glendower was just a load of bullshit to me.” Ronan relaxed, bringing an arm up over Gansey’s shoulder. Not cautious, not a skittering touch. He clasped Gansey to him and poured every bit of feeling into the places they were connected. “I’m still going to be here, no matter how this ends.”</p><p>“Who am I?”</p><p>"Our friend. Our king.”</p><p>Gansey pulled away, his gaze boring into Ronan’s. “You don’t have to say that.”</p><p>“I always tell the truth.”</p><p> </p><p>Gansey stared down at one of his many journals, crammed with notes. Morning sunlight washed him drawn-out rather than gold, exhausted instead of the usual painting of a pensive hero. Ronan read the words upside-down; Sanskrit vocabulary from back when they’d been trying to interpret the final language on the puzzle box. That seemed so long ago now.</p><p>Ronan set a bowl of cereal in front of him. “Chef’s finest.”</p><p>“Hmm?” Gansey glanced up at him, eyes distant. “Thank you. Do you think we’ll need that box again?”</p><p>Ronan shrugged, sitting on Monmouth’s dusty floor. “Whatever Cabeswater decides.”</p><p>Gansey frowned and went back to flipping through the pages. Ronan opened his mouth to say, “<em> It was really me. I’m in your dreams. I know that’s an intrusion, but I can’t control it, and you should know what I said to you then. I’ll be here. I’ll be here no matter what, you can’t think that the hold you have on me could ever loosen. You have my loyalty, and you’re more than my friend, you’re my king, do you know that? Do you know. . .” </em></p><p>Instead he said, “Parrish wants a ride today.”</p><p>And Gansey said, “Alright.”</p><p>And that was that.</p><p> </p><h1>
  <em> Adam. </em>
</h1><p>Adam dreamed of Cabeswater. It seemed they all did.</p><p>Adam dreamed of Cabeswater, but the difference was, he was really there. In some form or another, his spirit walked Cabeswater, the way Ronan thinks he dreams of it, too.</p><p>Adam dreamed of walking barefoot and toeing the lake and laying his hands on the trees and listening. Those were melancholy nights. He looked lonely every time, and Ronan stayed away at first. Watched from between the trunks over something more personal than even Gansey’s dreams of death and back stabbings.</p><p>It’s an established pattern with Gansey and Blue, that the dreams start good and go tumbling downhill from there, but with Adam things are often different. Tonight, Ronan falls asleep and opens his eyes to a cliff, with Adam staring over the edge.</p><p>Adam’s dressed in a white shirt with puffy sleeves, a black vest over top, like he stepped out of the 1800s or whatever the fuck that style is. Blood ran freely down his throat, soaking into his clothes. He was a <em> vampire--what? </em></p><p>Ronan said his name, and the cold, sharp wind stole it away. He shouted, but Adam just shook his head and took a step away, his toe edging open air. Ronan broke into action, darting toward him just as Adam went over. He caught Adam around the waist, and then they were both falling. He caught a flash of the churning ocean beneath them.</p><p>Down, down, down, they went.</p><p>Ronan’s feet struck cream-colored tile.</p><p>He rubbed at his eyes, heart threatening to burst out of his chest from the rush. Ronan’s arms were empty, and whatever he’d been wearing before was not nearly as comfortable as the worn Coca-Cola t-shirt on him now, slightly too tight at the shoulders and definitely not his. It belonged to the boy standing with his back to Ronan, stirring a pot of something on a stove.</p><p>They stood in a simple kitchen. A wall of windows to their right let in warm sunlight, and a large living room and a dark brown dining table set painted the picture of a cozy apartment. Ronan was surrounded by things painted friendly colors, charming second-hand items, and various plants.</p><p>This was a good dream, for once. The average person must have many more good dreams than bad, or neutral ones at the very least, but their group was plagued by stress and threats. It haunted their minds at night. And though Ronan knew he was featured in plenty of happy dreams, those were easy to forget under the horror and pain that stuck as never-healing wounds. Infected. They’re infected.</p><p>Ronan pushed those thoughts away. This was a good dream, and if he thought too hard about that tugging fear in his gut, the dream would darken.</p><p>“Adam?” Ronan said cautiously, trying to figure out his place in this scene. Adam glanced over his shoulder with a smile playing at his lips.</p><p>“Come here,” Adam said. Ronan moved toward him slowly. Adam turned, lifting a ladle of something that vaguely resembled some sauce or soup up to Ronan. He looked soft and peaceful in a chunky sweater and loose pajama pants. Ronan tucked the memory away.</p><p>Ronan’s brow furrowed. He leaned forward to sniff it. “What is it?”</p><p>“<em>Semur ayam kentang </em>,” Adam said, a phrase that made no sense, and the food changed to whatever he’d just named. He held the ladle closer and curled his other hand around Ronan’s elbow. “Stop looking scared, it’s just chicken and potato stew.”</p><p>Ronan didn’t stop looking suspicious, but he did play along. He tried the dish, and instantly forgot what it tasted like. Another weird dream feature-- or perhaps because this was Adam’s mind, and with no memories of what the stew tasted like, Ronan found only nothingness. He nodded to Adam anyway.</p><p>“You didn’t like it,” Adam stated.</p><p>Ronan shrugged easily. “I didn’t <em> not </em>like it.”</p><p>“Whatever, <em> I’ll </em> eat it,” Adam said, laughing. He put the ladle down, tugged on Ronan’s elbow, and then he <em> kissed Ronan. </em></p><p>Not a heavy kiss. Not a hesitant, awkward first kiss, but casual and affectionate, like they’d done this a thousand times before. Adam pulled back.</p><p>“What?” Adam said, smiling and tilting his head. He stepped closer, nearly chest-to-chest with Ronan. That smile did funny things to Ronan’s stomach.</p><p>“Um.” Credits to Adam, it was rare that Ronan was rendered speechless. “It’s fine.”</p><p>“The stew?” Ronan clamped his mouth shut and nodded. “Okay, Lynch.”</p><p>And then Adam leaned up to kiss him <em> again. </em>Chastely. He pulled away and went back to the stovetop, where other pots and saucepans were crowded, tugging Ronan with him by the hand. He pulled Ronan’s arm around his waist, and Ronan was too dumbfounded to resist. He propped his chin on Adam’s shoulder and felt his heart thudding against his ribcage.</p><p>Adam was warm and firm, the sweater only endearing him to Ronan even more, and <em> fuck </em>what the hell was going on with this dream.</p><p>It was belated and stupid when Ronan fully processed the fact that <em> this was Adam’s dream. </em> Not Ronan’s. <em> Adam’s. </em></p><p>“I wasn’t really sure what your mom would like,” Adam said, tending to the various foods. “So I just kind of, googled a bunch of stuff. Some cultural foods, some basics--” he gestured to a pot of mac-and-cheese-- “I figured Matthew would like that.”</p><p>“Sure,” Ronan agreed. His mind ran a mile a minute. “What’s this for, again?”</p><p>Adam scoffed and elbowed him. “You asshole. Dinner, obviously. Did you really forget? Tell me you at least got the ice cream I asked you to. Blue’s bringing a homemade pie to dinner, and I don’t know how that’s going to go, but it pays to be prepared. We could eat the ice cream by itself if it’s a total bust.”</p><p>Ronan relaxed a bit at that. He’d been beginning to think that this dream was about some meet-the-family dinner, and that implied. . .was Ronan meant to be in this dream? Was this something Adam wanted, or just some random scenario his mind was taking him through? Was he even the one that was supposed to be here, or was he taking the place of another figure?</p><p>“Am I being over-the-top? I thought I told you to tell me if I start being a perfectionist over stupid things again,” Adam said, pulling Ronan out of his thoughts. Adam chuckled, leaning back into Ronan’s chest and ducking his head. “I just want it to go well. I don’t know what everyone’s going to think about the engagement, but it should be a good moment when we tell them, right? No need to be stressed, absolutely no need. . .no need.”</p><p>He was assuring himself more than Ronan, and dreamscape be damned, Ronan turned Adam in his arms and pressed him back against the counter. Tipped Adam’s chin up and tried to school his expression into looking like whatever the Ronan-of-Adam’s-literal-dreams was supposed to look like.</p><p>Ronan said, “Shut the fuck up.”</p><p>Adam laughed.</p><p>“You don’t need to try hard for Matthew, you got that part right,” Ronan continued. “And-- well, you don’t really need to try for my mom either.”</p><p>“Good to know. And everyone else?”</p><p>“Doesn’t. Fucking. Matter.”</p><p>“I’m sure Blue would love to hear that,” Adam said. “Wait. You’re not including Noah in that statement are you? Because I <em> will </em>fight you.”</p><p>“Casper doesn’t eat,” Ronan said, his thoughts sluggishly cycling through everything the dream threw at him. They were <em> engaged? </em>This must be a one and done weird dream. Ronan had had plenty of dreams about handsome acquaintances dating him, that didn’t mean he cared for them in the slightest. It didn’t mean anything. Except that Adam kept looking at him so earnestly.</p><p>Ronan opened his mouth to ask, <em> “Do you love me?” </em>but he couldn’t. Adam didn’t love him. Part of his heart was Blue’s and always would be, and Ronan couldn’t compete with that, and Ronan wasn’t good enough, and Adam was the damn magician and he had magic even Ronan didn’t and this wasn’t meant to be--</p><p>That was not the sort of thing he should’ve been thinking of.</p><p>Darkness seeped in through the corners of the room. Blood splattered against the window. The sun plunged below the horizon.</p><p>Ronan watched Adam’s dream shift into a nightmare, and all he could say was, “Shit.”</p><p>Cavern walls rose up around them, the caves under Cabeswater. Ronan witnessed the moment Adam shifted from happy-Adam, to we’re-about-to-die-you-asshole-Adam. Adam threw himself against the cave wall, eyes wide, but jaw set angrily. Ronan pressed back against the opposite side. He hated himself, in a sudden flash, for having turned one of Adam’s peaceful moments into something dark. </p><p>A moment later, Ronan found out why Adam had jumped back. Like that day in the cave, he heard the flutter and rustle of ravens pouring through. Except, this time they weren’t ravens.</p><p>“I can’t do it!” Gansey’s voice, pure terror infused in it. “Please-- Adam, help me. I can’t. I can’t lift myself up. Adam!”</p><p>Ronan searched for the source of the voice, but the rustling grew closer. A loud buzzing, persistent and all-encompassing. He turned his head and a beam of light followed. Ronan registered the headlamp he was now wearing as it illuminated the furious faces of hornets hurtling toward him.</p><p>Adam was frozen against the wall. Ronan did the only thing he could think of.</p><p>“Get down!” he yelled.</p><p>Ronan dropped, covering his face with his hands and curling his body up protectively. The hornets zipped by, their wings brushing by his skin and <em> slicing. </em>Thin and deep, like paper cuts. Over his ears, his face, his hands. He peeked through the gaps in his fingers and saw Adam through the flurry of wings, turning into the wall and shouting.</p><p>“Gansey! I’m coming! Gansey, say something!” Adam screamed, fighting his way forward as the swarm of hornets thickened. “Gansey, come on--”</p><p>Adam choked and reeled back, clutching his throat. Horror stabbed into Ronan’s gut. A hornet had dived into Adam’s mouth. And then the hornets weren’t zipping by, they were converging on Adam. Ronan was overwhelmed by Adam writhing against the cave walls and Gansey’s shouts from some dark place ahead of them. Gansey wasn’t real. Probably. He leapt for Adam first.</p><p>Ronan swatted desperately at the hornets. Squashed them as they landed on Adam. The boy screamed. Ronan could barely see anything of him anymore, just a moving horde of wings and dark bodies. He shoved Adam backwards, forcing him to move. Adam still hadn’t stopped screaming, loud and wretched.</p><p>Ronan shouted and swung at the air. <em> Think happy thoughts. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts </em> --Gansey was dead silent, and Adam’s skin was still crawling with-- <em> happy thoughts, happy thoughts </em>. “Get off him!”</p><p>It didn’t work. Nothing worked, he was too desperate to stop the onslaught to call up a good memory. The only thing in the universe was Adam’s hand gripping his wrist, Adam’s gaping mouth and his hand on his throat, the hornets crawling in his mouth and nose and ears.</p><p>Adam dropped to his knees. Ronan followed.</p><p>The hornets kept whipping by, but they didn't even try to get Ronan. The next time Ronan cleared a spot on Adam’s neck, it was to find the skin ripped apart and red. He looked like a zombie, rotten flesh and flaking, peeling, scraps of skin.</p><p>Adam woke up.</p><p>The dream snapped to black.</p><p>Ronan was thrown violently back into Cabeswater. His back hit the ground, his head snapping against a rock.</p><p>He cursed a long stream on repeat. His heart thudded wildly. His hands shook.</p><p>Ronan woke up.</p><p>Monmouth was a swimming black-dark, a bare ray of moonlight coming through the window. It was quiet here, too, and Ronan was filled with such sick fear that he stumbled out to find Gansey. Just to see him, just to check that he was alive.</p><p>Then he called Adam.</p><p> </p><p>“What, Lynch? It’s. . .it’s three in the morning, what could you possibly need? Lynch. . .? Ronan?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“What does that mean? What’s wrong?”</p><p>Ronan let the silence sit.</p><p> </p><h1>
  <em> Noah. </em>
</h1><p>Noah didn’t dream. </p><p>He was the most reclusive of the group, the one Ronan knew the least about, and this only locked him in that place. Every time Ronan saw someone’s dreams, it brought them closer. He knew something new, he held someone’s secrets. It was one more invisible string binding them all together. Leaving Noah out.</p><p>“Are you awake?” Noah whispered.</p><p>Ronan glared into the tinted dark of his eyelids, the light shifting behind them. He couldn’t sleep. Like usual. Except, this time it was because he’d finally made his decision on the dream issue: he was going to tell them.</p><p>He hadn’t revealed anything on his phone call with Adam. Tomorrow, with no nighttime to protect him, Ronan would tell them all. Noah probably already knew.</p><p>“Unfortunately,” Ronan answered, cracking an eye open.</p><p>Noah’s face was a millimeter away. “Hi.”</p><p>“Jesus fuck--” Ronan jolted half out of his bed, throwing the sheets back. “What! What do you want?”</p><p>His room was too hot, his tank sticking to his skin. Logically, it shouldn’t be, not with the weather outside, but Ronan’s pounding heart kept the sweat coming. He couldn’t steady himself enough to fall back asleep. To risk plunging back into a dream with Adam.</p><p><em>Adam. </em>The implications of everything he’d just gone through ran on a loop through Ronan’s head. But that was business for tomorrow. Tonight, he needed proper sleep so he could deal with that very baggage.</p><p>“Are you okay?” Noah settled back on the edge of Ronan’s bed, crossing his legs with his hands cupped under his chin like an eager child. “I’ve seen some of your dreams. They’re so <em> normal. </em>”</p><p>Ronan stared at him for a long moment. “We have school tomorrow.”</p><p>“Like you actually go.”</p><p>“Did Cabeswater show you, or is that a ghost trick?”</p><p>Noah’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark. Ronan could nearly see the sheets beneath him, thin moonlight beaming straight through his pale skin. Noah shrugged, a mass of moving darkness slowly enveloping him. Ronan reached for the lamp.</p><p>“Don’t,” Noah blurted. Ronan froze, his fingers on the cord. “You won’t like my face.”</p><p>When Ronan looked back at him, Noah was completely shrouded in shadow. Ronan had seen enough horrible things for one night.</p><p>“Is something wrong with you too?” Ronan aimed for sarcastic and landed in concern. <em> Don’t let him be hurt, Cabeswater. Not Noah, not him after everyone else, it’s too much. </em>But Noah had seen more than any of them.</p><p>“I don’t have a choice.”</p><p>“About what?”</p><p>The dark lump of him didn’t move. A perceived monster out of clothes in the night, a demon in a bout of sleep paralysis. “This. Your dreams. Everything. Seeing people’s secrets is as easy as seeing a stone in the bottom of a pond. Sometimes it’s murky, but it’s still there, and you just look and. . .I’d never tell.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“But you’re going to,” Noah said. “I’ll be with you.”</p><p>Everything Noah said had double meanings Ronan couldn’t catch.</p><p>The urge to find answers hit Ronan like a maglev train, no warning. His heart beat faster, pulsing in his palms. He leaned toward Noah, trying to look harder, focus his gaze.</p><p>“Tell me what to do,” Ronan rasped. “Tell me how to fix this.”</p><p>“You can’t dream every answer.”</p><p>“I don’t need cryptic answers. How do I help you?”</p><p>The haze cleared away and his mind let him see Noah’s true face. Rotting. Horrible. Noah flinched back as if slapped.</p><p>“I don’t want to go,” Noah’s warped voice rattled out. “Don’t let Gansey use his favor on me.” Ronan couldn’t promise that, and Noah knew it. “He needs it more than I do.”</p><p>“Nothing’s going to happen to any of you if it kills me.”</p><p>Noah’s teeth were half-missing and yellow when he bared them, not quite a smile. “It might.”</p><p>He didn’t answer, waiting for Noah to say anything more. Seconds drew out into minutes. Ronan would do whatever it took, he’d tear the third sleeper apart with his bare hands if it kept them safe. Noah might be beyond helping in most things, but he wasn’t a lost cause yet. He still had a soul.</p><p>Ronan took a deep breath, and turned on the light.</p><p>Noah was gone.</p><p> </p><p>3 p.m., Monmouth Manufacturing. Twelve hours later. Sunlight glaring, wind slow and dusty. Ronan watched Gansey pull up with Blue and Adam from his bedroom window, more anxious than he’d ever been--telling them about Chainsaw had not been this hard. He’d stalled long enough.</p><p>Adam squinted up at the building, brushing hair out of his eyes. He locked eyes with Ronan. Adam offered a small wave with a confused smile. Ronan slammed the window shut and turned on his heel, stalking out into the cavernous main room.</p><p>“Noah?” Ronan called.</p><p>“Present.” The windows cast beams of shadow over Noah’s flickering form, standing by the entrance to Monmouth. “What do you need?”</p><p>Ronan thought so hard about his breathing he nearly forgot how to. “Just--just be here.”</p><p>A sharp knock sounded on the door, then pounding beside it as Blue’s voice declared, “I don’t have all day, Lynch!”</p><p>Cold spread over Ronan’s elbow, creeping up toward his shoulder. It took him a moment to realize it was Noah’s hand on him, trying to steady him. Ronan nodded to Noah, who smiled broadly.</p><p>Ronan opened the door. “I have something to tell you.”</p><p> </p><h1>
  <em> Everyone. </em>
</h1><p>“You’ve been seeing our <em> dreams, </em>our private thoughts, this whole time? And you didn’t think to let us know, or ask Cabeswater to help, or try to find any way out of it? Do you ever think about anyone but yourself? What did you even see--”</p><p>“This is exactly why I wasn’t going to fucking tell you,” Ronan snarled, cutting Blue off.</p><p>Blue was right. She was right, and he hated it, and he hated himself.</p><p>“What did you see?” Blue demanded.</p><p>Gansey, Adam, and Blue sat on the couch like parents calling a family meeting while Ronan paced over the ancient rug in front of them, their trouble-making child. Noah sat on the armrest by Blue, made more solid by her presence. He hadn’t said a word since the others walked in, but it was a reassurance to know he was there, and he was on Ronan’s side.</p><p>“You know what dreams are like for normal people,” Ronan said. “Alice in Wonderland shit. Talking snakes in tuxedos and ghosts possessing the silverware, I don’t know.”</p><p>Except, Ronan had rarely had dreams like that, perhaps a side effect of his powers. And the dreams he’d been in with the others had been far too constructed. Too real. They were raw dreams, desires, fears, not subconscious jumbles of TV shows and jokes turned on their heads and ridiculous stories that changed every few minutes.</p><p>Adam made a strangled sound, and Ronan realized he was pressing back laughter.</p><p>“Shut up,” Ronan said. Adam laughed outright.</p><p>“I think I remember you,” Gansey said suddenly. He’d had a pensive look on his face since Ronan started talking. The look of a scholar making a delightful new discovery rather than that of someone who felt scooped out and revealed. And <em> that </em>thought turned Ronan back to Blue with new eyes.</p><p>“I still don’t know your deepest darkest secret, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Ronan was not one for pointless talking and using more words than necessary to deliver a point. This time, though, the words kept spilling out, as if they could cushion him. “It wasn’t on purpose. Your secrets weren’t just popping up to tell me all about themselves--and what <em> is </em>your greatest secret, anyway? That you love makeup and frilly dresses?”</p><p>“Don't start,” Blue said. “You don’t get to talk, you don’t know what this feels like to us.”</p><p>“You were walking into my dreams, too,” Ronan said, whirling on her. “This whole thing started with Gansey showing up in <em> my </em>head.”</p><p>The boy in question inserted himself into the conversation with an awed, “Fascinating.”</p><p>Ronan shifted his weight. He waited for Gansey’s great conclusion. “So?”</p><p>“There was this dream,” Gansey started, eyes bright, “where I found Glendower’s tomb. You were there with me--I think you were there longer than that. You said I was your. . .”</p><p>“Yes. That was me.”</p><p>This was a landmark event, really. The first time other people were able to unnerve him with their gazes instead of the other way around.</p><p>“I trust you,” Gansey said. “Whatever you saw, I trust you with it.”</p><p>That meant more than anything in the world. </p><p>“You made it better,” Adam said carefully. Ronan remembered Adam’s dreams. The apartment, the cave, the kiss. “I don’t know which times were really you, but--there were nights when you pulled me out of nightmares. When you fixed things. Or when you fought beside me. My dreams always make me helpless. I guess the same rules don’t apply to an outsider, so you could actually do things. I don’t know. It helped.”</p><p>Ronan stared at him, long and scrutinizing.</p><p>Adam had dreamed of him. Of Ronan. Specifically, <em> Adam and Ronan. </em> Never <em> Adam and Blue. </em>That meant something--and maybe Ronan wasn’t ready to admit it to himself, but it was important.</p><p>“I’m waiting on that apology,” Blue said. Part of him was happy she pushed him to it, he’d never feel quite right otherwise.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ronan gritted out. Once it was out of his mouth, it was easier to say it again, more genuinely, “I’m sorry. I tried to stay away from anything private. I didn’t even want to mess with this at all, but I should have told you all earlier.”</p><p>“I get why,” Blue said.</p><p>“Do you trust me?”</p><p>Blue held out a hand, and when Ronan didn’t take it she sprung up to hug him instead, the top of her head so low it settled over his collarbones. She was a fierce hugger for such a small person. She reminded him of his mother.</p><p>Ronan half-heartedly tried to shake her off. “Don’t get comfortable, maggot.”</p><p>Adam met his gaze and gave him a steady look. Not quite a smile, but something sure and fully trusting.</p><p>Noah shot him a thumbs up.</p><p>Gansey rose and clasped Ronan’s shoulder. And then he said, “Do you think we could use your powers to explore a dream of Cabeswater?”</p><p> </p><h1>
  <em>The End.</em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I thought I'd get more writing done during quarantine, but that is not the case. Thank you to pigmypouter for doing this little fanfic/fanart team-up with me, the sketches are gorgeous. We both forgot the project existed, but hey, it's here now! Find her on tumblr or instagram! https://www.instagram.com/pigmypouter/?hl=en</p></blockquote></div></div>
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